


Cause and Effect

by JoJo



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Community: picfor1000, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 15:43:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3452732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/JoJo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>J.D.'s spooked, and decides to canvas opinion</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cause and Effect

**Author's Note:**

> my picture prompt is [here](https://www.flickr.com/photos/jnebmz/2081228470/in/photostream/lightbox/)

The day he heard the Judge’s proposal, J.D.’s shaving mirror fell off the window sill and smashed. Probably shouldn’t have told the others how rattled it made him, but he couldn’t help himself.

“You know that can’t be good, right?”

“Hoodoo,” Nathan said straight off, and J.D. was stung by that. 

“You believe in the Almighty don’t you?”

“I’m a scientist,” Nathan said, as if that was all the answer needed, and Josiah lifted his chin off his chest and looked at him gravely. J.D. wondered if the medical doctors in Eagle Bend and Ridge City would agree. Although he knew they liked to sell their own botanic remedies well enough. And they probably went to church sometimes, too.

“What’s this about?” Buck demanded, but J.D. didn’t answer right away.

Instead he turned to Chris. “Mrs. Potter thinks you wear black because you’ve known bad luck.” He gave Larabee’s hat a wary glance. It was perched, unluckily for them all, brim down on the table between him and Ezra. “That’s kind of superstitious ain’t it? Like black cats and all?”

Ezra smiled without lifting his eyes from his cards. At the same time he fingered the edge of the hat absently, which was puzzling. Chris himself pursed his lips and downed his whisky. He growled that he didn’t care about goddamned mirrors or black cats, but then Buck accused him of having unreasonable, suspicious views about some days, places, even some people who looked at him funny.

“Just get a bad luck feeling,” Chris said to that. And then, more truculent. “Don’t you ever get a bad luck feeling, Buck?”

Buck only grinned. “All I know is you _never_ let someone wear your hat — unless you plan on taking them home.” And he raised his brows in a strange, innocent way. 

“My mother,” Ezra said, lifting his hand away from the hat smoothly, “who as we know is out of her mind, will never wear peacock feathers.”

“Crows,” Josiah put in, a mite grumpy, but didn’t enlarge.

“Won’t take a dead horse’s shoes,” Vin said. “And hafta to sleep facing east.” Then he shrugged as if asking them to decide if he was sincere or up to mischief.

“Don’t you have lucky cards, Ezra?” J.D. wanted to know.

It stood to reason that he would.

“I make my own luck I assure you.”

“Uh-huh,” Chris said, “that why you strop your razor three times before makin’ the first cut?” There was a short silence after that while they all digested why and when Chris might have noticed this small detail of Ezra’s personal grooming routine.

Nathan shook his head. “There’s nothing in numbers except how you add ‘em up.” 

J.D. decided not to mention how Casey swore if you held a piece of cloth towards the evening star, the number of stars around it would be the number of your children. There were about twelve last time, and although they’d both laughed it had given him a nasty shock. 

“Don’t you always ask for the same stall in the livery?” he asked Buck instead. “Now that sounds pretty superstitious to me.”

“My horse likes that stall!”

Chris seemed particularly amused by Buck’s defensiveness. As if it was some kind of payback for the hat jibe, whatever that even meant.

“Anyhow,” Buck went on, “you ain’t answered me, kid. What’s all this about?”

J.D. felt a little ashamed. Part of him had enjoyed the evening star shenanigans, but really he considered himself enough of a man not to believe old wives’ tales anymore. It was just...

“The Judge’s dinner invitation,” he said, gloomy. “Did you know it ain’t just us and him?”

Vin got a kind of sour look then because he didn’t even want to go to any damned dinner, only it was supposed to be a kind of thank you, a vote of confidence.

“Well it’s in the restaurant, J.D.,” Ezra said, overly patient. “So of course it won’t be just us.”

“No, you don’t understand. Miz Travis is comin’ too, and Billy.”

“That’s nice.”

“And Mrs. Potter. And Mrs. Wells.”

Vin looked alarmed, although evidently not for the same reason as J.D.

“Ho,” Buck said, “and Miss Casey too? That the problem?”

“Yes Casey too and no that ain’t the problem, Buck!” J.D. snapped. “Can’t any of you count?” 

“Oh I know that one,” Josiah said and nodded. “It’s said if thirteen people sit down at the table one of them will be dead before the year’s over.”

And J.D. expected them all to burst out laughing. But there was something about Josiah’s tone and they didn’t. 

“Well,” Ezra said eventually. “Frankly that seems a highly conservative estimation.”

Which was so true that J.D.’s stomach hurt a little. 

Then Nathan rose, cross, as if it was personal, as if his stomach hurt too. 

“Damnit, J.D., the next time one of you fools is bleeding under my hands it’ll be because you didn’t stay down when you were told, not because of any unlucky thirteens!”

J.D. understood that well enough, but was dismayed anyhow.

Chris’s tone was quiet, full of finality. “Just keep your gun clean, and do what Buck tells you, kid.” He rose too, snagged his hat. It was a sign that the conversation was over.

“I know it’s stupid,” J.D. said to him, trying to sound sure of himself. “It’ll be fine, there won’t be any trouble.”

“There’ll always be trouble, J.D.,” Chris said. “Reckon all you need is a new mirror.” He glanced at Ezra, almost as if he wanted to talk to him, and then moved off.

Unexpected, a card span out of Ezra’s deck at dizzying speed, landed face up next to J.D.’s beer mug.

“Well, would you believe it,” Ezra said, staring. “Lucky number seven!” 

And he got to his feet, went to belly up right next to Chris at the bar.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to farad for the last minute check :)


End file.
